The Adventures of the Amazing Sorensen Family!

Isaac's Baby Blessing

2012-01-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Okay so you've all figured out by now that I'm WAY behind on posting. And it's all these big events at the end of the year that I've failed to post. These are by far the most daunting posts, which is why it has taken me so long to get to them. I decided I can't keep putting it off forever so I'm starting now and hoping I can catch up quickly!

The Sorensen Clan

Isaac's baby blessing was November 6th and we were lucky enough to have the majority of our families down for the event. All of Spencer's family was able to attend with the exception of his oldest brother and his family who live in Texas. Everyone else came down for the weekend so we had a great time playing with cousins (and we had an especially good time not traveling haha), and showing everyone where we live. For many of Spencer's siblings this was the first time they had seen where we live and the first time Ashley had a chance to show her cousins her fun room and all of her stuff.

The Grimm/Miller Clan

Most of my family was able to come as well. My youngest brother is on his mission and my second youngest brother was in his first semester at BYU back from his mission and really needed the weekend to study (he felt so bad about it, and I felt bad that he was having such a rough time, but we understood his need to stay so he could do well in school) but my oldest brother and his wife were able to come, along with my parents, grandparents, and my Aunt Kristin's family. We're so blessed to have them just a few short hours away and so they only came down for the blessing and festivities on Sunday. It was great to have both sides of the family together. We were super cramped with over 20 people in our teeny livingroom, but it was still so much fun!

It was a busy, yet fun weekend and I'm so happy that we have the supportive family that we do. They are all such wonderful people and we're so grateful to all of them for coming to see us and to hear sweet Isaac receive such a special blessing from Spencer.

Ashley was happy to get Isaac back to herself after all the family left. ;)

Isaac's Birth Story - Finally!

2011-11-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

The day before Isaac was born I was really complaining (rather loudly, I think) that this boy was never going to come and that I was doomed to have severe back pain for the rest of my life and never move again. Did I mention that every day he was getting closer and closer to kicking my rib out? I was in so much more pain during pregnancy with him than I was with Ashley. At my 37 week appointment I was measuring 40 weeks and the doctor felt around and guessed that the little guy was already almost 8 pounds but that I could do an ultrasound to check. I stupidly said no, that I wasn’t concerned how big he was. Concerned or not, I should have said yes! Then I would get to see the baby again!

At my 38 week appointment my doctor was out of town (classic, right?) and so I saw the other doctor in his office. She checked me for dilation and I was dilated to 2 cm. I thought for sure he was a long way off. I was dilated to 3 cm for 2 weeks before Ashley was born. I made it to that Sunday (my official 39 week mark and the day he would have come, had he been as early as Ashley) and by Sunday night I was convinced he’d make me wait until the bitter end. I had so much back pain that I hadn’t slept through the night for several months already and pretty much the only thing I could do was lay on the couch all day. Monday passed and still, no baby, no signs of baby.

Tuesday morning I woke up about 2:30 to go pee, which I did every morning. It was always quite the production for me. When I would first get out of bed I’m sure I looked like a 110-year-old woman, grabbing at my back and holding the wall for support, waddling my way to the bathroom. There were many times Spencer woke up by the sound of my pained gasps and instead of pitying me, he would laugh because apparently there was something very funny about his poor wife desperately trying to make it to the bathroom as if her life depended on it. I went back to bed without incident.

At about 6 o’clock I woke up to pee, again. But this time I had some contractions on the way to the bathroom. That was nothing new. I’d had contractions before while getting up to go to the bathroom. The only thing was I had cramps along with them. And they were every 5 minutes apart. I laid in bed for about a half an hour timing contractions before I decided I should wake Spencer up and tell him what was going on. He laughed at me and thought I was joking. But nope. I sure wasn’t! I was finally in labor!

My bag was already packed so Spencer added a few things to it for him and we got Ashley up and made the appropriate phone calls to make sure we could drop her off at a friend’s house while we went to the hospital. I called my mom. She was trying to convince my dad to come with her but he was worried I wasn’t really in labor yet and that they would drive all the way down here (2 hours) and I would be sent home from the hospital. I hurried and took a shower before dropping Ashley off at our friends and I had planned to put make up on so I could have better labor and delivery pictures than last time but to be honest, I was worried I had waited a little too long because things were getting pretty intense. I think if I had stopped to put make up on Spencer might have dragged me out of the house!

By 9 o’clock we had Ashley dropped off, my parents on standby, and we hit traffic on the way to the hospital. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and we made it to the hospital about 9:30. I don’t know what it is about me in labor, but something about it makes people not believe me. When I went to the hospital with Ashley I told the nurse I was in labor and she kind of laughed at me like I was a silly little first time mom. I told her I hadn’t come in yet to try to get admitted and she told me she’d probably be sending me home. She was shocked when she discovered I was dilated to 5 cm. Almost the same thing happened this time. I calmly told them that today was the day and that I was having a baby. It took them forever to send me to the triage room to wait to be checked and then forever after that before a nurse came in to check me. Oh well, right? At least I was at the hospital so if the baby came while they took their sweet time at least the mess would be on their floor and not mine.

When the nurse checked me she kind of gasped. “You’re at a 6! You look like this is a walk in the park!” Ha. Yeah. A walk in the park. That’s exactly how I would describe having a baby.

She hurried me into a labor and delivery room and got me all set up. We called my parents to tell them I was being admitted (I told you so!) and they were on their way! I was very happy with the way my nurses handled my request to go natural. With Ashley it seemed like every 5 minutes someone was asking me if I was sure I didn’t want an epidural. Some of them even tried to convince me to have one. My two nurses with Isaac just wrote it up on the board in my room that I did not want an epidural and no one asked me again! It was so nice!

Spencer and I watched Megamind while I was in labor. And a few hours later my parents got there. My dad came in for a while until at about noon my doctor came in to break my water. At that point he decided it was time to go and I very much agreed. When my doctor walked in he jokingly said that I didn’t look like I was in near enough pain but that he would take care of that once he broke my water. I kept trying to watch the movie but breaking my water had caused my contractions to be much more intense. I wasn’t handling the pain near as well as I was before. When he left the room he looked at my face again and said, “That’s better.” As painful as it all was, I still found it funny and laughed a little.

I was now in so much pain that I would have done just about anything to get that kid out. Spencer kept positive and told me that Isaac would come at 1 o’clock and that I only had an hour left. I told him I couldn’t make it until then because I was so tired and hungry but he kept telling me, “45 more minutes…” “only half an hour left…” “15 more minutes and he’ll be here…” By the time he got to 15 minutes I was starting to feel the urge to push. The only problem was I was only dilated to 8 cm and the nurse said he was still pretty far up there. She could feel his head spinning on her finger. I told her I didn’t care and that I had to start pushing like, yesterday. She called down for a doctor and told me to hold on until the doctor came. I had no idea that resisting that urge to push would be so difficult. It was like asking me to move a mountain. I couldn’t do it! I found myself having to push just a little bit.

10 minutes had gone by and still no doctor came. As it turned out, my doctor was stuck in the OR doing a c-section and they were trying to get the other doctor to come up. My nurse had called down several times telling the doctor to please hurry but it was taking so long for her to come! At one point Spencer said quite loudly, “Does she need help finding the elevator?” I still found it in me to chuckle a little bit but I was a little upset that the doctor had not thought she needed to come quickly. I think my nurse was starting to get nervous that she was going to have to deliver the baby. I was also kind of scared at that point because I think the baby was pressing on a nerve and I couldn’t move my legs at all. Something weird was going on in my arms as well because my arms and hands had seized up. I couldn’t even squeeze my mom and Spencer’s hands anymore. I was worried about what was going on to cause that and I needed to push but the doctor wasn’t there… it was a miserable 15 minutes. At long last the doctor came and set up the bed for delivery. I was so relieved to be pushing that in two very strong pushes the baby came out! My two pushes only took about 2 minutes but that baby came out so fast! Spencer looked at the clock and what do you know, it was 12:59. He was right! By 1 o’clock our baby was here!

They laid my sweet boy on my chest and I got to look down at his poor swollen face. Taking that sweet baby into my arms after so much hard work is something I’ll never forget. Too soon, it seemed, the doctor was taking him from me and said, “Um, we’re just going to take him over here and see if we can get him to cry.” I sensed that they were worried but I was so calm and so relieved that I just knew everything was fine. I didn’t realize how blue he was when he came out but the doctor thought he wasn’t breathing. As it turned out, his poor little head suffered some trauma coming out so quickly (I was only dilated to 8 cm when I started pushing and he hadn’t even come down all the way yet) and caused him to bruise severely. I knew your baby could be pretty banged up by getting stuck, but I had no idea that coming out too quickly could do some damage as well. In the end, the doctor was satisfied that he was fine and that it was just bruising. They called him the little blueberry.

During our stay at the hospital the nurses were on alert that my baby had a blue head and that if they saw him not to panic, he wasn’t choking or anything, he was in fact breathing, he was just very beat up. Apparently one of the charge nurses was not informed and when another nurse was walking him by after taking him to get his shots, she panicked and told her to stop, the baby was choking. My nurse even stopped checking to make sure the numbers on our wristbands matched. “You’re the only one in the hospital with a blue baby,” she joked.

And so there was my little blueberry, weighing in at 9 pounds, 1 ounce, 21 inches, born at 12:59 PM on September 20^th, 2011. It wasn’t until a few hours later when my parents left to get Ashley to bring her to the hospital that we decided to name him Isaac Spencer after his daddy.

My Blueberry just after birth.

He's not a blueberry anymore!

The Adventures of the Amazing Sorensen Family Presents: Halloween

2011-11-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

Okay so I've been feeling bad that I don't ever post anything too adventrue-y and I worry that my poor readers may be wondering why we like to boast that we have amazing adventures. Well, this, my friends, will prove to you that we do have an exciting life and that our adventures are truly amazing. :)

It started off like any other Halloween, the pre-trick-or-treating excitement (okay, mostly my pre-trick-or-treating excitement, closely followed by Ashley's excitement). We were invited to share some dinner with two super fun families in our ward and then to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood after. Ashley was way excited to go with other kids (and so was I!). She doesn't get to be around kids near enough. She looked so dang cute in her Rapunzel dress and Isaac was snoozing peacefully in some pumpkin pajamas (though he was dressed up for the ward trunk-or-treat in his awesome Thor costume).

Thor! The God of Thunder!

Incidentally, this neighborhood we were trick-or-treating in was Gladys Knight's neighborhood. More on that later.

Ashely would march right up to those doors with all the other kids and in her cute little 2 1/2-year-old voice say "Trick-Or-Treat!" and her eyes would open wide at all the candy that was pored into her bucket. She would then tell them thank you (don't I have such a polite and well-mannered child? ha ha ha...) and follow the kids on to the next house. I'm not going to lie, I LOVED taking Ashley trick-or-treating! She was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my whole life and I can't wait to take her again next year! It was so much fun to watch her!

Some of Ashley's trick-or-treating pals.

One of the many houses she trick-or-treated at.

     Okay, so here comes the most amazing part about this amazing adventure. We had to trick-or-treat Gladys Knight's house. How could we not? She was in our ward anyway, and her house was right there. No way we could pass it up! On her front lawn on a big projector, movies were playing and on two big folding tables were mountains of full size candy bars! Holy. Moly. It was awesome. :) Off to the side were three brand new bikes with three contests to win them. The first two required leaving your picture and then they would decide the next day "Cutest Costume" and "Coolest Costume". We didn't enter those. Mostly out of laziness haha. Then there was a giant bowl of jelly beans and you would leave your guess as to how many were in there. The closest guess would win the third bike.

   Again, out of laziness, we weren't going to guess. But then our friends talked us into making a guess for each of us and then one for Ashley. Spencer didn't even look at the jelly bean bowl. He just guessed a random number and we went on our merry way. At about 9 o'clock we got a phone call from one of the men working the contest for Gladys. Spencer had won the bike! His random guess was only about 30 or 40 jelly beans off and we won the bike! Amazing, right!?! So now we have this totally awesome green mountain bike sitting in our living room because we're too afraid to leave in on our patio for fear it will get stolen, or parts of it will get stolen. (Here's a hint, Gladys is not hurting for money, and this is a nice bike.)

     And so we have much to thank Gladys for next time we see her at church and I guess we should maybe bring a plate of cookies to our friends who encouraged us to leave a guess when we almost didn't. :)

     It was a fun night. And an amazing adventure. And I can't wait to take Ashley trick-or-treating again next year, not because I want to try to win another bike (though let's be honest, how cool would that be?) but because I love my little cuties and I want to watch them have so much fun too!

Happy Halloween!

Crap Happens

2011-10-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

About a week and a half before Isaac was born I was at Target with Ashley and I was suppose to be buying some last minute baby items. I did in fact buy those last minute baby items but I also managed to get sidetracked (surprise, surprise) in the home section of Target which happened to be having a huge clearance sale on some bedding. It just so happened that I had been looking for the last year or so for some new bedding to change things up a bit but I had a teensy weensy budget to work with. The plan was to buy a new comforter - something solid and plain - and sew pillows and curtains to go with it, that way it would be cheaper and I got to be creative with the sewing machine. Anyway, I ended up buying a new comforter with shams, a quilt, and a throw pillow. What should have cost me about $200 cost only $47 and some change. I. Love. Target. Period.

I waited until after I got home to call Spencer on his lunch break to make sure I did something okay haha. I figured if I waited until I was home he'd be more likely to want to keep it since it was already here. ;) Turns out he was fine with it anyway since he knew I'd been searching for a while now. Full of excitement, I opened up my new purchases and remade my bed to see how great it was. Doesn't it look awesome? My room is so pretty! I'm still planning on sewing a few more pillows and some new curtains but that can wait for a while. Take a moment to enjoy these pictures...

I know that most of you by now are wondering why I am bothering to share my new bedding with you because really, I know you don't care. But just barely over a week after I got this, I got one of these...

I know. So adorable. I love him to death. But he has a real problem. He really REALLY likes to poop or pee while changing his diaper. The pee is no big deal. It's sterile. And it cleans up easy. But what I really hate is the poop. And this kid poops A LOT. I had no idea that a kid could poop this much, and I thought Ashley pooped a lot. But the poop isn't the whole problem. The whole problem is that no only does he poop, but she SHOOTS poop. Yes. Like a cannon. In a way I'm glad I wasn't in the room to witness how this happened, but what you are about to see may scare you. (And if you have a weak stomach, do not continue on.) Spencer claims that he was blocking the poop, but as you will see, it just wasn't enough. This is amazing. And yet, I hope it never happens again...

... Right onto my new bedding. From several feet away. And you can't even see all the splatter marks. Yep, crap happens. :)

Isaac Spencer Sorensen- 9 lbs 1 oz - 21 inches!

2011-09-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Before anything else is written it should be known that this is Spencer blogging and not Sara. That's why it is so short and poorly written. Anyway... He's here! Little Isaac was born on Tuesday Sep. 20, 2011 and we couldn't be any happier. Mom and baby are doing great and we are home and happy. You'll notice in the earlier pictures that Isaac looks like he is choking (his head looks purple and blue), luckily he never choked, he just experienced significant bruising while descending through the birth canal. So beware, he looks like he got punched in the face and then run over, but now he is healthy and pink, after a couple days of healing. Without further ado here's a bunch of pictures and I'm sure Sara will post more later and write a better blog too!

First things first! Sara wouldn't even hold him till she had her #2 with grilled onions!

I told you it was purple...

Poor little guy. But still cute!

The best part of my life!!!

Grandpa Grimm!

The shirt says it all!

Ready to go!

Shley helped me put him in the car seat.

Really the first time he opened his eyes and.... they're blue!!!! Surprise!!!

We are asleep!


Ashley love Isaac so much she gave him the anaconda squeeze! Awwww...

Yup, I'm pretty sure I'm the dad.

I love this one!

The Sorensen Summer

2011-08-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

First things first...

Yup, this is me. Nice and big. And uncomfortable. You can't see it, but I'm wearing heels. ;) If figure if I'm going to be uncomfortable no matter what I do, I may as well look cute! Oh, and I had to give the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting that day too. I think there were a lot of people feeling sorry for me. ;)

     Okay, now that I've showed off how large I am, let's get to the fun summer we had with the Sorensen side of the family! I apologize for the lack of pictures, I actually have a ton of them, but out of respect for my sister-in-law who does not like pictures of her family up on the internet, I've decided to include only pictures without them. You can see how much we love them considering there are only 2 pictures from this summer without them in them. :) Ashley spends all of her time with her cousins and she's still talking about them a month after we've been home. :)
     We went to the cabin twice this summer which is awesome because we don't get to go very often anymore since we don't live close now. We went on rides on the 4-wheelers, hiked around, played with bugs, and watched all the men participate in a "Man Challenge." You'll have to ask Spencer about that one. ;) Spencer's oldest brother and his family were able to be there from Texas and we don't see them much so it was a real treat! We also took advantage of the opportunity to take family pictures while there (pictures to follow). We also spent lots of time playing games at the house, and swimming, whether at the city pool or in a kiddie pool in the backyard.
     We were able to visit twice this summer and the first time we visited Spencer had to go back to start his rotation and he left Ashley and I with the family for 4 days. I've never spent time apart from Spencer EVER, not even one night, and Ashley has only spent the night away from him twice and she was pretty little both times so in a way, this was a first for her too. It was so much fun to spend extra time with cousins but by the end of the 4 days we were missing Spencer quite a bit! Ashley's had attachment issues ever since. ;)
     The second time we visited (right before coming home for the summer) Spencer was able to spend the whole time there (yay!) and we were there for almost a week! It was great to see them twice in one summer, especially since we're not sure when we'll see them next because of the baby that's soon to be born. :)
     We had an awesome time with the Sorensen side of the family, we're grateful to have been able to see them so much, and we can't wait to see them again!

Home Again!

2011-08-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

We're finally home! It's been quite the whirlwind of a summer with no signs of slowing down. Spencer finished his first clinical rotation in Cedar City, UT and he loved it! We stayed with my parents so that we could keep our apartment in Henderson without having to pay a second monthly rent somewhere else. My mom and I spent a little bit of time sewing up baby bedding for Baby Boy on the way (though we were not able to finish everything because of the insane business) and I was able to start putting up what I had yesterday after church (more pictures to follow when it's more complete). Ashley is a little wierded out that her bed is being changed but I had to remind her that it's not her bed anymore, she has a big girl bed just for her (which, by the way, she is still sleeping in fabulously).

And here I am now at 33 weeks. My skirt was a little tight around my stomach (it has a tight panel around the middle) so it sucked me in a little and my shirt is a little billowy so you can't tell, but I've grown a ton! I compared myself last night to pictures of when I was pregnant with Ashley and I'm as big now as I was with Ashley at 37+ weeks. I may be in trouble. We'll see. ;) I've got an insane amount of chronic back pain and I've had it for the last month or so already. Spencer, bless his heart, has been giving me many a back/neck rub and working his physical therapy magic on me to relieve some of that pain. What a sweet man!

Among all the other crazy things that went on while we were gone, Ashley and I drove with my parents up to Provo on July 27th to take my youngest brother to the MTC! He's going to the Atlanta North Georgia mission and we're all so excited for him. Ashley got to bond with Daniel for about a month before he left which was so good. We drove with my parents and Daniel so Ashley had the car ride with him as well and on the way home from the MTC she kept asking where her Uncle Danny was. It was so sad! My mom cried haha.

A week later we were able to welcome home my other little brother from his mission in Mexico! Ashley had not seen him since she was about 3 months old so of course she didn't recognize him very well. We've showed her lots of pictures of him but the boy looks so different now I think it took her a bit to figure out who he was! If possible, David grew even taller and skinnier while he was away. :) It was so good to see him and I'm SO glad we were able to be at the airport to pick him up!

Waiting for David to walk through!

And there he is!!!

We've had a great summer so far and I'm excited to download the rest of my pictures and share our adventures with the Sorensen side of the family!

Quick Update

2011-07-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

     So we've been gone for about 4 weeks now and Spencer's rotation only lasts 2 more weeks! I'm excited to get back home but I'm sad too because there was so much I wanted to do around here that I just haven't had time to do! We've been so busy! I did get to have a Mary Kay party with my mom's friends which actually turned out to be very successful and I have been able to start on Baby Boy's crib bedding so that has been a great success. :)
     Poor Ashley sometimes asks to "go home" and I have to tell her that this is home right now for a little while longer and she seems to be doing much better with the idea. However, it did break my heart in the beginning when I realized she is old enough to know that this is not home and that she's been gone from home a while and that normally we would have been back by now. She's adjusting though and I think the constant streem of visitors my parents have had is helping her to cope - there's always someone new to play with! We've been spending lots of time at the pool with the "fishy slide" which I can't seem to get Ashley away from, and she's been loving wandering around my parents' property with the dogs. She's grown a ton over the summer and I'm pretty sure she may even have grown a few inches in the last few weeks! She's seeming less and less like a baby and more and more like a toddler now which is fun, but kind of sad too. :) It goes by so fast! Good thing there's another one on the way. ;)
     Speaking of, Baby Boy is still nameless but we've thought of a few more names we like. I'm not going to give any of those names away just yet so you'll all have to wait and see! For now you can keep calling him by his nickname, Thor haha. And let me tell you, I think Thor really does have a hammer in there because some of those kicks really hurt! As of yesterday I am 30 weeks and I have yet to take a picture of that but here's a 29 week picture for you all to enjoy!

I hope you're all enjoying your summer and I promise to try to update better on what's been going on the last month (because really, SO much has been going on and I don't want you all to miss out! ;)) but that may have to wait until I get back home and settled. But for now, enjoy the tidbits. ;)

Ashley and the Big Girl Bed

2011-06-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

This picture is a year old, that's why Ashley looks so little haha.

     Ashley has been napping on and off in the twin bed we have in her room . It's normally reserved for grandmas when they come to stay so we don't have to make them sleep on the floor, but with baby brother coming in a few months we knew we needed to switch her over anyway. We lamented for a while about what we were going to do, whether or not we could afford to buy a toddler bed and another mattress for it, new bedding, all that jazz, and how in the world we could fit it in her room without having to take out the twin bed. It was going to be very crowded. In the end we decided on buying a bed rail and letting Ashley sleep in a twin bed and then when the grandmas come to visit they can sleep in Ashley's bed and Ashely can sleep on a children's cot. We found one online for $30 and $30 sounded better than $56 for a toddler bed (WalMart), $38 for a second mattress (also at WalMart) and who knows how much on new bedding for a smaller bed.
      So Ashley's second birthday marked the beginning of bed rail hunting and within a week we had it all set up and started letting her take naps in the bed. Some days she just wouldn't sleep and we would put her in the crib and I have to say, we should have tried harder but we didn't. I was a little concerned about losing some sleep at night by trying to have her sleep there at night too so I gave in and put her in the crib for night sleeping.
     Two nights ago as we were saying our family prayer, giving crazy kisses, and prepping her for bed she said "I want to sleep in the big girl bed" which she sometimes says for her naps. I asked her if she really wanted to or if she would rather sleep in the crib but she insisted that she would sleep in the big girl bed. The thing is, Ashley is excited about the big girl bed. She loves it, in fact. But she's had considerable shorter naptimes in the big girl bed and I think I suffered enough with an hour and a half less of nap time per day. I was not excited about losing a few hours to myself in the morning too, not to mention then numerous times she was bound to wake up at night and realize she could get out of bed. But Spencer didn't have school the next morning so I knew I'd have help if things didn't go well and I gave in. We let her sleep in the big girl bed. After tucking her in and saying goodnight, Spencer and I settled into the couch to watch a movie, taking bets on how long we though she'd last until she came out. We were both sooo wrong! She never came out once and she slept until about 8:30 which is around her normal time for waking up in the morning! I was shocked!
     And so we let her sleep in her big girl bed last night too. She came out once asking to watch Buzz and Woody. We calmly told her it was time to sleep, tucked her back in and that was the end of it! Spencer was up a little after 5 this morning to go early morning fishing and I expected the noise to wake her up and that she would sleep a few more hours with me but nope! She stayed asleep! She didn't sleep as long as the night before, only until 7:20 (so we'll see how the day goes haha) but she did it! I'm hoping this goes on and that she continues to have good nights in her big girl bed. I was terrified that this would be a long, complicated process that resulted in a tired mama, a tired toddler, and grumpiness/impatience all around, but so far so good! Wish us luck that it keeps going that way! :)

More Spring Cleaning - Does it End?

2011-06-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Before I get into my latest cleaning adventure I'm going to take a moment to indulge in myself and show you a picture of my belly. For a while there I was a little depressed at how saggy the 2 time pregnant belly was but hey, I'd just lost 30 lbs and there was a little extra sag that hadn't had time to tighten up before this little guy came into existence, but now it's tightening up and I look more pregnant than fat. :D So here I am at 24 weeks! (And can I just say that I'm thrilled that I didn't have to photoshop my acne out? The Dr. gave me the okay to continue to use Proactiv and thank heavens for that!)

     So anyway, I'm down to the wire here on preparing for my "half move" as I like to call it. That, coupled with my early nesting desires, has lead me to perform a giant purge on all the junk in my house. I've never liked all the junk I have but I've also had a hard time separating myself from my junk. Thoughts of "but I might need it again!" or "but that lotion bottle is still half full, who cares if I don't like the scent!" keep running through my mind but in the last month I've decided that enough is enough and it's time to purge. You saw my closet makeover (even more amazing is my storage closet makeover that I haven't even posted yet haha) but yesterday I decided my bathroom needed some TLC.
     My bathroom has always been clean but the cupboards were FULL of stuff that I didn't need. In the end I managed to DI a few more things (which I wish I would have discovered sooner since I just made a DI trip on Saturday haha) and I filled up an entire trash bag with half full bottles of lotion that I probably would never use again anyway, old shampoo and conditioner bottles with just a little left in them, expired antibacterial ointments (expired by several years, I might add), and various other things I just have no use for anymore. Can I just say that it was an extremely liberating experience? Holy cow! Normally I worry about how wasteful it is for me to throw things like that away. I don't have much money, how could I throw away a perfectly good bottle of lotion just because I don't like it? (I know, it doesn't make any sense to me now that I've purged it out from under my bathroom sink haha.) Letting go and throwing away made me feel so good! And even though under my bathroom sink is still full, it's full of stuff that I use and I can promise you that I'll be much more careful when I buy things in the future. (Hint: Don't buy a giant 3 pack of lotion at Costco, torture yourself with the first 2 bottles and then have to throw the 3rd bottle away, just buy something you like even if it's more expensive to buy it somewhere else instead of in bulk at Costco with a coupon!)
     Today I've got big plans to clean out Ashley's linen closet and under her sink (the linen closet may be more of a fiasco than mine, but under her sink will be a breeze, there's almost nothing in there!) and the best part of this whole de-junking and spring cleaning process is that I have ZERO plans to replace what I got rid of with more stuff. :) Well, I guess having a shiny, sparkling clean house is a plus too. ;)
     Anyway, the whole point of me blogging about my soon-to-be junk free house is that I've really taken to heart the message to simplify. I've been thinking so much about that concept for a long time now and I'm finally doing something about it (I attribute that to the "half move" and the nesting haha) and it feels so good. A simplified life is a fun, relaxing, carefree life in which I get to spend more time with my kids (I can say kids now even though one is still chilling in utero haha) and I have to spend less time cleaning my house. So I challenge all of you who read this to simplify and start enjoying life the way it's meant to be. Muster up the courage I know you have to clean out and simplify! It feels so good and there's just something nice about opening up a closet to get out your summer clothes, or getting under the bathroom sink for that new tube of toothpaste and being able to see exactly everything that's in there and where it's all at! I can't even explain the amount of stress that has been lifted off my shoulders because I know exactly where things are at when I want them. Have fun simplifying your life!

Ashley's 2nd Birthday - Part 2!

2011-05-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I had too many pictures of cute little Ashley and her birthday celebrations to do just one post. :) Her birthday was Wednesday the 11th and a few days later on that Saturday we had some of my family down for a little party. I figured Ashley wouldn't remember a birthday party with friends and Spencer was in the middle of finals so I really didn't want to stress about planning a party for friends too (besides the fact that I don't have the money to feed all those little mouths and make fun decorations and games haha, maybe next year). But my dad and my older brother and his wife were able to come down (my mom was already here) for the party. Poor Uncle Danny missed it because he had to go to drill.

Ashley was so excited to see her grandpa. I'm pretty sure she loves my dad more than she loves me, as evidenced by the pictures below (When was the last time she chilled on the grass with me? Try NEVER!):

After lunch (and before her nap which I wasn't so sure she'd take with all the excitement) we had cupcakes and opened presents! I'm dumb and I videoed the blowing out of the candle but didn't make sure anyone was taking pictures of it haha. So, sorry, you miss out on those but you got them from her real birthday so I don't feel quite so bad. :) She loved all her presents and we had to open all of them immediately so she could play with them. Again, she needed grandpa to help her open them because they're super buds like that. ;)

Perhaps the funniest thing of the day was her exploration of the Play Dough puppy Uncle Alan and Aunt Alexis gave her. She loved mushing the dough and squashing it into the molds. There was a little crank that you could shove play dough in and grind it to make dog food for the puppy. She really loved that. You could also fill some tubes in the puppy's head with play dough and when you pushed his head back down onto his neck, hair wold grow out the top of his head and a tongue would come out of his mouth. For whatever reason she was terrified of this little feature! We all had a good laugh making the puppy grow hair and watching her freak out (is that child abuse?) and I'm still working with her, but I think she's not so scared of it anymore. She still doesn't like it but she's also not backing away saying "I'm scared! I'm scared!"

This is before she got all freaked out. She was shoving pieces of the dog food we'd made into his mouth. She thought that was pretty cool. She likes to feed her toys. I think she worries about them going hungry. ;)

And this is just before we abused her with the "growing" hair and tongue. Like I said, I'm working on it with her and she seems to be making improvements. ;) We love our little girl to death and we were so happy to be able to have a family party for her!

Ashley's 2nd Birthday!

2011-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

I had almost finished writing this post when all of a sudden everything disappeared and and I can't even tell you how mad I am about it because I've been working on this for an hour! Lame...

Well, Ashley turned 2 on May 11th! I had a ton of pictures to choose from (we had a little family party for her on Saturday as well) and I decided to split her birthday into 2 posts and save this one just for her actual birthday. Spencer was in the middle of finals so he was hibernating in the bedroom all day (and let me tell you, he felt so bad!) but luckily my mom was here to help me make all the preparations leading up to our little celebration that night. We decided to have pizza that night because it's Ashley's favorite (yeah, she's not our daughter is she haha) and then we did a simple cake since we'd be making 2 during that week for both parties. When it came time to sing happy birthday Ashley sang along and ended up spitting all over half the cake trying to blow her candle out. :) It was too cute. In the end she counted to 3 with me and on "three" she must have blown just right while saying it because she blew it out! She was so shocked! :) After cake we opened presents (which she was completely thrilled about) and I think she tried to lick the first one... not sure why haha.

Along with her new Rapunzel jammies (which she insisted on wearing to bed three nights in a row and threw a fit every morning when we had to take them off to get dressed), she got a Little People fairy set, a princess puzzle, a giant doggy floor puzzle, and a new bike! Every day when we're at the park (all the little kids that play there in the morning are in our ward) Ashley borrows bikes that no one is using but when all the kids are on their bikes she's so sad and lonely! So I thought it was time she got her own bike. She wants to take it everywhere! The only problem seems to be that she can't reach the pedals but she's content enough for now to push along like a little Flinstone. :) At her 2-year check-up she came up in the 30th percentile for height and the 76th percentile for weight. I had no idea she was such a shorty! I guess that's why even on the closest seat setting and with the pedal blocks on she still can't reach haha. (At this point the doctor also said it's fine to get her off whole milk haha. Apparently she's healthy enough without the extra fat haha.)

And last, but certainly not least, here's Ashley helping grandma put together the floor puzzle. After a nice bath and her lovely Rapunzel PJs I'm pretty sure this little girl was in heaven. :) I can't believe she's already 2. I may have actually shed a few tears later thinking about how little and helpless she was when she was born and now she's a crazy little toddler who can do so much for herself. We just love her to death!

The Promised Ultrasound Pictures

2011-04-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't lie in my last post when I said I would take care of scanning ultrasound pictures during Ashley's nap. I really did scan them and touch them up and everything! I just didn't make it as far as posting them on here for all you lovely people who still read my blog. ;) So without further ado, please enjoy Baby Boy Sorensen and all of his naked baby glory. ;)

And there you have it! I'm nervous posting this picture proving he's really a boy because he's just so *exposed* ya know? I definitely couldn't post it on facebook for the world to see so consider yourselves lucky that you get to see proof. ;) But we're very excited to be having a boy and I'm busy already trying to find a way to put a boy's and girl's room together that doesn't clash haha. Luckily one of Ashley's main colors in her room is bright green so I'm thinking bright green, navy blue, orange, and aqua. I've had no such luck finding anything already made (and let's face it, crib sets are outrageously expensive, it should be against the law to charge so much for something young couples with no money need) so I'm constantly on the lookout for fabrics that have those colors so that I can get sewing and have a cute bedding set ready for him before he gets here. :)

And just because I haven't posted a picture of my fat self for a while now, here's my 18 week profile the day of the ultrasound. :)

My Closet!

2011-04-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

Now I know I promised ultrasound pictures next but I haven't had the time to scan them in just yet (I'm hoping to knock that off my to-do list during this lovely 3 hour block of time while Ashley's napping!) but I was just so excited about my closet being finished that I had to post the pictures! Keep in mind it's not much because I've got such a small space and no money for a closet system that I'll have to rip out and patch up holes in when we move or else keep here (which I wouldn't be willing to do anyway). And I know the closet isn't small, but my house in general is small which is why non-closet items are stored there. In reality I'm lucky to have this big of a closet and I'm so grateful for it! Now, for the before pictures click here. And here are the afters!

Like I said, it's not beautiful because I have to have non-closet items in there but I think it's a massive improvement from what it was! I think this would be a lot more dramatic if you had all seen this transformation in person but just know that I am so happy with my newly re-organized closet (and I'm quite happy that I finally had the chance to spray for roaches in there too... makes me feel better about reaching into the corners for those shoes I haven't worn for a while haha). Ashley's closet is almost done, though I've got some big items I need to sell to get them out of the way and then I'm pretty much done! And I promise, ultrasound pictures to come very soon. :)

It's A Boy!

2011-04-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Yup, definitely a boy! I didn't need an ultrasound tech to tell me he was a boy! Let me just say, he's well endowed and proud of it haha. I'm hoping to scan all of my ultrasound pictures tomorrow and post them here for your viewing pleasure but I'm just too pooped to do it now. I'm afraid if I try my crazed brain will screw it all up and it'll take me twice as long because I'll have to do it over anyway. :) So to all those of you who voted boy, you win! Your prize is to donate to the clothing fund! ;) Just kidding haha. Speaking of clothes, we (that is to say, I) were so excited about finding out we were expecting a boy that we went and bought all of this! (Not gonna lie, the 5 pack of onesies we bought a month ago, you know, just in case, and we're glad we don't have to exchange them haha.)

Oh, my heart just melts at the thought of our cute little boy on the way. :) Suddenly things seem much more real and I'm a little freaked out, but that's okay! Now we're busing thinking up manly names like Thor, Engine Block, and Sport. Haha, just kidding. We want a manly name but maybe not that manly... :)

More Than I Can Chew?

2011-04-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

So blogged about re-organizing, or I guess putting it into organization for the first time haha, Ashley's closet and I honestly and truly thought it would take a day. And perhaps it would have (I don't think it was too much to ask for) if it wasn't for the fact that my closet looks like this:

Yup, just as bad or worse than Ashley's. You may be wondering what in the world this has to do with organizing Ashley's closet. Well, all of my crafting supplies are currently in her closet because at the time we moved in, her closet had the most room. This poses a problem when I decide to work on a project while she's napping and I find, to my utter devastation, that I have left everything or at least sometime I really, really need in her closet and I can't get it out or she will wake up (too bad for me, I've got a really light sleeper). So the goal was to move the majority of crafting supplies that I most often get at into my closet to avoid this problem. Naturally this meant I had to re-organize my closet too (which was on the list of things to do, but a little farther down). This lead to needing to get into my storage closet (also in my bedroom) which is smaller and even messier than the other closets (pictures to follow) and so now my house is in complete disarray in my noble attempts to organize my house better so that it's cleaner and easier to clean.
*Sigh,* looks like it will take me much longer than the weekend to figure this mess out but once it's done I'll have before and after pictures of TWO clean and well organized closets! Yay! Then it will be on to the storage closet... (insert twilight zone music here).

Spring Cleaning

2011-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

     I had the sudden realization a few nights ago while lying in bed awake and unable to sleep (again), that I've only got about 2 months before we pack up to live in Cedar City, UT for 6 weeks which means I have to get ready for this baby in 2 months, not 4 or 5! We'll be back late July, but at that point I've got one brother coming home from a mission and the next one leaving on a mission, then we'll be visiting the Sorensen clan up in Salt Lake some time in August, plus I'm trying to squeeze in a beach trip somewhere in there which means August will be one busy month and before I know it, September will be upon me and I'll wonder where time flew. At that point I think I'll be too big and too tired to start on any major household projects that need to be done in preparation for Baby #2 (and yes, I've got some major projects...)
     I also have a confession to make. Don't worry, it's not a bad one. In fact, it might be really good actually. I'm obsessed with organization blogs and I stalk quite a few of them to get ideas on how to utilize my small yet happy space. I recently found another organization blog that I've fallen in love with and I think her way of life and organization are the closest to mine that I've found yet. (Yay!) So she's got millions of little ideas that are really going to help me out in my quest to organize (and stay that way).
     I'm not really sure where this organization/clean freak attitude came from but it came about sometime while living with roommates I think. Anyone knowing me growing up knows that I'm a pack-rat, I don't like to get rid of things that I think I might use later (that might have more to do with a tight budget than anything haha) and I'm way too sentimental for my own good which means I end up storing a lot of things that I shouldn't (my old t-shirt I made with my cousins in high school to wear to the midnight selling of the 6th Harry Potter book - do I really need that still? yes... i made it!... with family!...). But alas, this leads to a disorganized home which is the last thing I want. I'm also a big fan of the phrase "a place for everything, and everything in it's place" and I really want to take that to heart in the next few months as I prepare to do a half move and make room for Baby #2 (who's gender we will know in less than a week!).
     Because I need some motivation, and because I'd like to see how far I came once I'm done, I've taken a lot of lovely before pictures so that later I can blog with my before and after shots. I'm ridiculously excited for the after shots. And as nerdy as this sounds, I think I'm really going to enjoy the project. Some projects are the most fun when they're finished, but I think this project is going to be fun for me the whole way through. My only stress point right now is money to buy appropriate storage and I'm going to have to convince Spencer that this is well worth the money (right? Isn't my sanity worth it?) so we'll see how that goes. :)
     I'm going to tackle Ashley's closet first (as much as mine is driving me crazy) because her room is the most important in terms of preparing for the baby. And just so you can get as excited as I am about this whole closet makeover, here's the before shots!

I know it's bad, don't judge, this is why I'm fixing it. :) And strictly for your viewing pleasure, here is one final picture of my little monkey who has just finished eating, pulverizing and smearing banana in her hair. Gotta love it!

How could I be mad, right?

Mommy Awards

2011-04-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

     I just thought I'd throw it out there that I think there should be mommy awards for certain things. Like today, Ashley threw a monster tantrum because I told her we were having macaroni and cheese for lunch but it had to cook first. You would have thought the world was coming to an end! I calmly put her in her room and told her she could come out when she was done crying and shut the door. It got really quiet (I thought she might have fallen asleep since she was pretty tired) and when lunch was ready I went in to get her. Upon opening the door I saw that she had ripped half the wipes out of the container and had wiped her nose with every single one.
     You would think it's a blessing that a child likes to have her face wiped but at that moment I was not happy. But I did not make a face, I did not yell, I did not swat her hand, I calmly picked her up, strapped her in the high chair and set her up for lunch. Then I went in a re-folded the wipes to put back into the container (I know they're slightly dirty but when money is tight who cares. If she wanted to be cleaned with nice, new wipes then she should have thought about that before throwing them all over the room.) I felt like this was a small victory but worthy of an award nonetheless. My child purposely does things she knows I will get very angry over so that she can feel satisfaction at making me angry (who would have thought this was possible for a not-quite-two-year-old? not me...). By remaining calm and not giving in to anger (which blew over in about 30 seconds, I'm just not usually patient enough to hold it in that long) I won! I won, I won, I won!!! She usually wins. Not gonna lie.
     So anyway, I felt like it was a very small victory in what is going to be a very long battle and I figured any success needs to be acknowledged. ;) I'm excited and I hope the rest of the day goes this well on my end. :)

Ultrasound Scheduled!

2011-03-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

Alright! My ultrasound is scheduled! April 26th at 4:30 is the big day! I'm hoping that it's late enough in the day that Spencer can be there. Generally he gets out early enough that he should, so please cross your fingers that this day is not an exception!
While we wait just under 1 more month to find out, please feel free to cast your gender vote on the poll located on the left side of our blog!

Laying Eggs

2011-03-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

So I've been feeling kind of miserable for myself during this pregnancy and I have a few theories as to why. But before I mope here's a picture of me that I edited my wonderful acne out of. Oh how I love photoshop. ;)

I like to think that my belly sticking out is all baby. But in reality I think it's the leftover fat from Ashley that I had yet to lose poking out over the top of my growing uterus. Sounds gross. And it is haha. I haven't gained any weight yet and I'm content to (as long as it is safe) keep it that way for another month or two. I'm not trying to not gain weight, but I haven't gone crazy upon ditching my diet either haha.

Anyway, my theories... this pregnancy, though normal, has been sooo different from my pregnancy with Ashley! I got sick earlier (early enough that I had to suffer through several weeks of morning sickness before being able to see a doctor to get some medication, I know, I'm a baby), I've been sick longer (though it is easing up finally), I can't go (if you know what I mean, and it is miserable!), and I can't sleep anymore (insomnia maybe?). And this biggest thing is that I'm home all day. No more school and work to distract me and force me to get out of bed and dress myself before 10 AM and have a productive day. I didn't realize how depressing that would be until all that went away and I had the luxury (ha) of being pregnant without all that. I'm in the biggest lazy rut of my life and I don't know how to get out of it! Help! :)

As I was thinking about all of this today I found myself wishing that humans could lay eggs. I know that sounds bizarre but think about how awesome that would be. No more 50 pound pack-ons, no more stretch marks, no more morning sickness or constipation, no episiotomies haha, I'd even be willing to sit on my egg to keep it warm. But alas, that is very understandably not a part of the plan so in the mean time I'll try to be content with making a baby the traditional way. ;)

On a happier note we had a really fun, yet busy week over spring break! Mom, dad, and Daniel came on Monday and Tuesday, and Alan and Alexis showed up to hang out on Saturday so I was able to see all of my family but Elder Grimm. It was fun! Here are some pictures for you to enjoy of our week!

Daniel and Spencer doing a polar bear swim at 10 o'clock at night... crazies!

At the M&M store on the Strip.

At the children's discovery museum here in Las Vegas.

Watching a movie in her old carseat that she drug out from her room. Silly girl... :)

Ashley wanted to make sure Dolly came to the park with us...

At the park, sunglasses and all!

My Naked Child

2011-03-07T13:42:00.000-08:00

So I wrote an email to my little brother yesterday (he's on a mission in Mexico) and I decided to include some pictures of Ashley since I hadn't done that in a while. It didn't occur to me until I talked to my mom this morning that most of those pictures involved my naked child (don't worry, there's a diaper on...).

Our bath time ritual is quite simple. Ashley gets washed (which is desperately needed given she makes such a big mess during dinner), she plays for a while and soaks the floor with water, and then Spencer or I get her out and tell her to go scare the other parent. She runs out of the bathroom screaming to come find the other parent and yells "I'm naked!" Charming, I know. We like to let her run around naked for a bit - she has a sensitive bottom and it needs to be aired out haha - but she's kind of like an excited puppy who, upon being let into the house (or out of the tub as the case may be) runs around looking for good places to pee becuase the excitement won't let her hold it in. Most night I clean up pee within minutes of getting out of the tub. But oh well. The rest of the night she wanders around in nothing but a diaper until bedtime when we make her wear her pjs haha. So this is what happens a lot of the time she's naked:

And because I know you're all dying to see what I look like now I'll put up my first belly picture at 10 weeks (I'm now 12, by the way).

Being More Productive... Maybe...

2011-02-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

It's 8:50 AM and I'm just rolling out of bed. Well, I got up at 7:30 to ease my insatiable hunger and promptly got back into bed and really had to persuade myself to get out again just a few minutes ago. It's true, most of you have heard, that I am indeed expecting number 2 in late September which is the only reason I can think of that someone like me, normally up at 6:45 and working out, would instead sleep in until 7:30, eat breakfast, and immediately return to bed. My bed is not made, my dishes are not done, the floor is covered in crumbs, there is clutter to be seen on almost every surface, and where am I? Laying on the couch. Watching TV with Ashley. Or sometimes by myself. Taking 3 hour naps after Ashley goes down. And generally ignoring my responsibilities. But, we're having a baby!
We're super excited to add another one to our family. Ashley is so more than ready to have a sibling I think so I'm really hoping she adjusts well to a baby who does not go home after a few hours. :) I've been baby hungry for a while now but every time I thought about having a baby I would freak out. Clearly I was not ready yet. A few months ago I prayed and prayed that when it was time I would have peaceful, comforting feelings about the idea and that those feelings wouldn't leave me (otherwise I'd be too scared to try!). My prayers were answered and that peaceful, comforting feeling came and did not leave. We were blessed to find out I was pregnant shortly after that. We've been so blessed to be able to have children when we want to. I think Heavenly Father knows that I would not be able to handle it if this were not the case. There are so many strong women out there who struggle to bear children and I can't even imagine how they must feel. We thank our Heavenly Father every day that we have not had to bear that burden. We are so excited to have a new little one enter into our family and we're anxiously waiting to find out if it will be a boy or a girl! (Though we are a fair ways off from finding that out, I'm only 9 weeks!)
I promise the next post will have more pictures of Ashley. She's more interesting than me. ;)

Christmas and New Years... Finally!

2011-01-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry I'm such a slacker! For whatever reason I have issues actually getting my tushy in gear to download pictures from my camera and I don't like to post until I have pictures! Well now I've got the pictures so it's time for our big long holiday post haha.
We were gone for a total of 2 and a half weeks which was just long enough I think. We didn't want to leave our families but you can only live out of a suitcase for so long ya know? That and bed/naptime routines were totally thrown off and no one in our little family was gettnig much sleep...
The week leading up to Christmas we were with my family. My birthday is on the 22nd and so this was the first time I've spent my birthday with my family in 4 years! Spencer use to work for FedEx and so we were never able to travel until Christmas Eve and so I haven't been with my family on my birthday in a while. Also because of previous birthdays with Spencer at FedEx and being so near the Christmas rush, Spencer has not been home on my birthday for the past three years. Top that off with the fact that my dad often worked nights on my birthday for most of my life, my dad was there on my birthday in I don't know how long! :) It was a lot of fun. I did nothing. Yup. You heard me. Nothing. And it was wonderful. :) Well I did do one thing, I went and saw the new Harry Potter movie with Spencer and my little brother Daniel. It was awesome. ;)
Pictures of the happy day:

Then we had Christmas with my family as well. All my siblings were there except for David who is still on his mission. We did get to talk to him though and he sounds like a Mexican! It's so funny! Anyway, Ashley got the hang of presents more this year and she was SOOOO excited to see "bocks" (blocks) "doggies" "Buzz" "Woody" and "Mo" (Nemo) in her plethora of presents.

By the end of the day she was thoroughly worn out and was trying to go to sleep in weird places...

She's not actually asleep in any of these pcitures, she's giggling, however it was a somewhat hysterical giggle and so at this point we put her to bed. :)

The day after Christmas we went to Spencer's parents' house. We were able to go to the Sorensen family Christmas party that night which was great! He has a large extended family so it was great to see them all there otherwise we may not have been able to see them all during the week.

We squeezed in two cabin trips during that time and there was so much snow! We had a ton of fun and we sure miss winter cabin trips. One of the cabin trips was over New Year's Eve and we went midnight sledding! It was so much fun and I hope we get a chance to make it a tradition. :)

These pictures are from the first cabin trip of the week. After that there was about 2 more feet of snow! It was crazy! Ya for tons of snow!!!
Ashley had a great time with her cousins and she has picked up so many words from them. She's blabbering like crazy and after a week and a half with her cousins her blabbering has become more understandable. She even looks a little more grown up (except for the baldness...). Even after coming home she constantly asks for them. The night we got home we put her to bed and she started crying: "Aly, Aly, Aly, Nathan!!!" It was so cute but at the same time so sad. She misses them a ton and I can't wait until we all live closer again so she can spend more time with them.

Catching Up!

2010-12-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

Life has been quite insane for us the past month and our blog has suffered. Obviously. So I'll share a quick note and some pictures from Thanksgiving and you'll just have to be satisfied with that. :)
Spencer's parents were able to stop by for a few days before the week of Thanksgiving while on their way to Texas to visit Spencer's brother and his family. It was really good for Ashley to get them all to herself since she's usually fighting for attention with so many other cousins around. She finally warmed up to Jerry and I caught a cute picture of them sleeping on the couch together. :) I'm hoping when we go for Christmas she remembers this time and will still got to him and cuddle. It's so cute. :) We had a great time seeing them and going to the Bellagio to look at the fountains. It's great now that tourist season is over and it seems a little less crowded. And cooler. Last time we went it was still well over 100 degrees out!
We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house this year in Kanarraville, UT. My aunt and uncle were there with their grandson and we were the only ones there! It was so weird to have David, Daniel and Alan all gone! I think it may have been the smallest Thanksgiving I'd experienced. :) We had such a great time though. Ashley loves her grandparents and it was a lot of fun to see her with my dad. We would get all dressed up to go play in the snow and she just wanted to follow my dad and his snow blower all around and she'd only go to him outside haha. She loved it out there even though it was in the negatives at times and would always throw a fit when it was time to go back inside. :)
We had a great week and a great time with all of our family and we can't wait for Christmas festivities and for Spencer to be done with finals! Yay! He's done on Friday and I'll feel like we're a normal family for a month before he goes back. I'm seriously going to relish this time as it will be the first time ever that we get to enjoy the holidays with no FedEx or educational time restraints dictating how much time we get to spend together. It's going to be great. :)

Sara's Attempts at Making Extra Money...

2010-11-11T14:33:00.000-08:00

     Okay, so I know this is a very lame post and you're probably all rolling your eyes at me, but as I'm sure you all know Spencer is in physical therapy school and money is extremely tight, to say the least. I've been brainstorming hundreds of ideas on how I can bring in a little extra cash while still staying home with Ashley (let's face it, we're obtaining monster debt and loans aren't even covering everything). I'm currently babysitting a super cute little boy (about 2 months) in the mornings while his mom works so her husband can go to school too. It's really fun and the extra money has helped out. And Ashley LOVES him! She's so ready to be a big sister I think haha.

     I also started a fitness blog which some of you may or may not have heard about. I wanted to put my college education to good use by starting a blog for fitness related things such as nutrition, aerobics, weight training, and more. I also have an Amazon store there which gives me a small percentage of anything on there anyone buys. (So far I've only made money off myself haha) Even if you're not in the market for purchasing fitness related items, check out the blog anyway because I like to feel appreciated for the work I put into it. ;)

     My most recent attempt has so far failed me entirely. I admit, I only started it a few days ago but I've had no success as of yet. I have my own online store for hair accessories. It's quite limited as of yet, but that's only because it takes money to start seeing as I have to make everything I put on there and I just don't have a lot of money to put into it at the moment. I'd love for anyone to check it out and give me some feedback on what I've got. The URL is http://MyCutiePieDesigns.etsy.com I've made quite a bit of stuff in preparation for the opening of my store but I haven't posted everything I've got because it does cost money to post items for sale. Please check it out and let me know what you think or let me know of any suggestions you have.

     Lastly, I love you all and appreciate the support that you have given our family. We'd be lost without you all. We miss everyone so much and we're glad for the holidays coming up so we can see so many of our missed loved ones.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well obviously since it's Sunday we didn't go out Trick-or-Treating tonight but we had plenty of opportunity to go out all dressed up this week! On Wednesday night we had our tri-ward Trunk-or-Treat which was a lot of fun. Spencer and I got all dressed up as 80s rock stars (we were amazing) and Ashley was a cute little ladybug. I'm quite proud of Ashley's costume because I made it myself, even the wings! And I was proud of the skirt and leggings I made for my costume. I love this extra time on my hands that I didn't have while in school so that I can make fun things for my family. :) Anyway, back to the trunk-or-treat, Ashley had a great time collecting candy and while we never got her to say "trick-or-treat," we did get her to say "thank you" quite a few times which makes us look better as parents anyway haha. She wasn't scared of anything. There was a trunk that had a sheet over it and someone was sticking their hand out to give kids candy. Their hand and arm were painted to look all dead and nasty. A lot of the little kids were backing away and wouldn't go there but Ashley marched right up and took the candy piece by piece out of the nasty hand and even had the courage to say "thank you" when she was done haha. What a brave little ladybug!

Thursday I went back to the pumpkin patch with Ashley and a few friends where I snapped some cute pictures!

A lot of these pictures are just funny but this last vertical one of Ashley was pretty wall-hanging worthy haha. She's a doll.
On Friday we were invited to a party at one of Spencer's classmates house and so we got all dressed up again for the occasion. Ashley won Most Adorable Costume (which I admit I do take some credit for although it was Ashley who really made it most adorable haha). I actually had time to curl my hair for the occasion and had more time for make up which made my costume that much more rad. ;) These pictures are the BEST and you'll see why hahahahahaha!

I know you were just dying to see my ridiculously awesome make up that I would wear every day if it were appropriate and if I had the time... and my awesome hair. For some reason people always ask me if it's real or a wig when it's this curly haha. Just for the record, IT'S REAL! ;)

This picture definitely takes the cake! Spencer wishes he weren't wearing his glasses but oh well. I think it's the best ever. I just might frame it. Rock on!

So, it being the Sabbath and all we did not go out tonight but rather, Spencer and I enjoyed watching Hocus Pocus and drinking hot apple cider after Ashley went to bed. It was almost perfect... I say almost because our air conditioner kept clicking on (and it's set at 80 degrees...) which means it is utterly too warm for the last day in October. And next week it only gets warmer. Someday it will feel like fall. Maybe by Christmas. ;) Happy Halloween!

Fun stuff!

2010-10-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

My mom was here for about a week while Spencer was finishing up his midterms (and let me tell you, if it weren't for my mother and for weekly visits with Merryn and Carolyn, I'd be ready for the nut house!) and while she was here we went to the pumpkin patch! I should back up a little. It is in the mid to high 70s here and up until about a week or two ago it was still in the 80s and 90s. I do NOT feel like this is fall. And there are no changing trees. And I made some delicious spiced caramel apple cupcakes that made my house smell like Thanksgiving and I went outside into the blasted heat and things just haven't made sense around here. I got really use to Utah and to changing seasons. And you can all gasp in shock when I say, I miss Utah. *Gasp!*

So, back to my mom and the pumpkin patch. There's a fun little pumpkin patch just down the street from us so we decided to go for FHE while my mom was still here. We went at night so it was nice and dark (and cooler, but still not cool enough for sweaters) and there was a great Halloween moon! There were pony rides, a petting zoo, and lots of inflatable slides. So cool! You had to pay for that stuff so we didn't do any of it but Ashley was really excited just to watch. So at the petting zoo there was this really ugly chicken. If it weren't for the fact that it was in with other chickens, I would not even have known it was a chicken. Apparently her name was Cruella De Ville if that gives you any kind of idea what this chicken looked like. My mom took pictures of this weird chicken for like, 10 minutes! Ashley had wandered away long before then so we left grandma with the chicken. :) Spencer commented, "Gee, I'm sure glad we brought grandma to the petting zoo..." Haha, for sure! Ashley loved it all and we had a good time watching her dance to the music that was blaring. She sure loves to dance!

And I got some cute pictures (just a few) before my camera died, but don't worry, I will be going back to get more! Enjoy!

We also gutted Ashley's first pumpkin on Saturday! ( I know, I know, we abused Ashley last year by not carving a pumpkin.) It was a huge success and Ashley got loads and loads of fiber and vitamin A when she decided to "help" us clean out the pumpkin by eating the guts! I know it won't kill her which is why she managed to eat some but I couldn't just let her eat a ton of raw pumpkin, hence the picture where she has a pouty face after taking the guts away...

Conference Weekend

2010-10-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

     Most trips we make seem very last-minute but hey, that's life for us right now. Last minute we decided we'd try to go to Grandma Prestwich's 80th birthday party. The party was Thursday night and then we'd spend the rest of conference weekend with the Sorensen family at the cabin. We were so excited to go! Long story short, I got the stomach flu the day we left. I braved the drive to my parents' house 2 1/2 hours away from us where we stopped to change Ashley's diaper and for me to get a blessing before finishing our journey to South Jordan. After stopping we decided I was too sick to continue the journey so we made plans to stay the night, made a few phone calls to apologize for not coming (Spencer's mom thought he was joking...) and I went straight to bed. It's a good thing we stayed because Spencer got sick shortly after I did. Ashley was fine but we were glad to have my parents to watch her while we moaned and groaned for 24 hours.
     Friday we decided we were well enough to finish the trip to the cabin at least. It meant a short weekend with the Sorensens but we were all looking forward to the visit so we figured we might as well go anyways. On Saturday I got the news that everyone at my parents' house now had the stomach flu! How terrible is that? We must have had some pretty potent stomach bug because we were so careful not to get anyone sick while we were there! It was crazy! Everyone is fine now (finally) and I think the bug died out with my side of the family. :)
     On the bright side, I have cute pictures of Ashley playing in the leaves at the cabin with her cousins! They were throwing them on her head while she laughed hysterically. It was so stinking cute. I just wish she could spend more time with them. They all adore each other.

Oh man I love this cute kid. ;)

Conference gave me a lot to think about. I could not get enough of it and I felt like I needed to hear exactly everything they said! It was amazing! One of my biggest things I want to share real quick is that I've realized I need to slow down and simplify. I've been trying hard to keep myself busy for several reasons. One of them being that I don't feel like I've accomplished anything if I don't have a big long to-do list every day that I can check things off of. I've made it ridiculously long and then when I don't get everything done I feel like a failure. I've been focusing on little things that make me really busy to the point where I'm annoyed when Ashley wakes up from her nap because I needed more time to do my to-do list. I've been annoyed that she wants to go outside and play now that the weather has finally cooled down. I've been really bothered when I don't get to all the stores I wanted to because of nap schedules or because I didn't get to shower yet.

Since Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on simplifying and slowing down, I've really tried to focus on that. Who cares if I didn't get to clean out my fridge today? Is anyone even going to notice if I didn't dust? Will anyone say anything to me if I took Ashley to the park unshowered? Probably not... I'm proud to report good progress this week in slowing down and enjoying my time with Ashley. She won't be our only child so I should cherish the time with her right now while I can focus my attention on her. I know she notices the change in me too because she's less whiny, throws less tantrums, and is generally happier and goofier.

I'm really excited for my progress and I'm really going to try to keep it up and just slow down and enjoy life. I'm use to being in such a hurry all the time and it's nice to take it easy and slow down to really notice what's going on and just have fun. My house isn't as clean but hey, I can deal with that if it means a happy husband, a happy baby, and a happy me. :)

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last minute we decided to skip town and head for Cedar City! It was fun to get away and be with my family for a little bit. Alan and Alexis are living with my parents for a bit so it was cool to have them there so much. Ashley had a good time bugging the dogs and spreading toys as far around the house as she could. We lost a cow shaped puzzle piece. :( She's really good at hiding things...
I don't have any pictures from the weekend, we were too lazy to take any, but I do have a funny story from a few weeks back with lots of pictures. ;) Ashley was not eating her lunch and I didn't know what to give her so she wouldn't starve. She kept pointing to the fruit bowl where we usually have the bananas she loves but there weren't any in there. Just some old, nasty looking apples I needed to get rid of. I grabbed one and held it out to see if that's what she wanted and of course it was. Gross. I put it back and went to the fridge where I knew I still had some nectarines. I figured I'd give her one and once she figured out she couldn't eat it whole I'd finish it off for her.
All I have to say was that there wasn't anything left for me to finish! She cuddled it up against her chest and took monster bites out of it! At one point she choked on some skin which really freaked her out but then once her throat was clear she went at it again! Crazy kid... here's the pictures!

Oh yes. And here she is walking around in my shirt. She thought that was pretty cool. Weirdo. ;)

Back to school, back to school, to show everyone that he's not a fool...

2010-08-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

      Haha Spencer says that a lot and since he did indeed go back to school on Monday I thought I'd post the title in honor of him. :) That being said, Ashley and I have been trying to jam pack our days so they don't seem so long without daddy home. On Tuesday we went to PetSmart to buy our new goldfish an air pump. We're pretty sure they were starting to die due to deoxygenated water. Weird huh? Then to Michael's to pass the time, then to the grocery story, all before the morning nap. Ashley screamed a lot at the grocery store and for some reason a lot of people stopped to tell me it was cute. Cute? Are you kidding me? My child is screaming while I'm trying to focus and get out of there as quick as possible and all you can think to tell me is that it's cute? You could have offered to buy her at least! Then you can deal with screaming child!
      After the nap daddy came home about an hour earlier than we expected which was nice because I had my 2nd doctor's appointment with the endocrinologist (which is a whole other story in and of itself, but just so you know, they're redoing the thyroid tests and running even more with it, not sure what's wrong yet).
      Wednesday my visiting teacher came over (sanity!), Ashley ate the burnt wick off the end of a candle, broke a Scentsy warmer, and colored on the carpet and entertainment center. Thank heavens for washable crayons! As soon as Spencer got home I left to be alone for a bit which was nice. :)
      And today (which is what I was really wanted to get to) I decided to take Ashley to Target to buy a new book and to buy some new sandals for her chubby little feet. The tops of her feet are so fat that they don't fit into most shoes her size. Aunt Larua loaned her a pair of her little girl's Nikes for the winter but seeing as it doesn't get cold here until at least November, I figured another pair of sandals that doesn't have little cute chubby feet squeezing out the top wouldn't hurt.
      So there we were, standing the isle of little girls' shoes with Ashley in the cart so I could try shoes on her without her escaping (which she is way too good at). I put on a cute pair of gold sandals which she thought were pretty cool. Please observe said shoes:

Then I pulled one off and tried another one on. She got really mad at me and pointed back at the gold shoe so I took of the other one to put the gold shoe back on. A few minutes later I found another cute shoe for her and same thing. She got really mad that I put a different shoe on her and kept pointing at the gold shoe. The gold shoes won. I stopped looking and headed for the register. I can't believe my child is already picking out her shoes with such intensity at 15 months! I'm headed for trouble. :) As it turned out, I won too though because unbeknownst to me these cute gold sandals were on clearance for $3.74. Sometimes, I like little happy surprises, like things on clearance that have no clearance sticker...

The end is near...

2010-08-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

Okay so when I said the end I didn't mean THE end. Just the end of my life with Spencer at home haha. On Monday he goes back to school full-time and quite frankly I'm not sure how Ashley and I are going to handle it. I'm pretty sure she gets sick of me and that can only get worse, and I know I get sick of being couped up all day. I can't wait for the weather to cool down so we can play outside. I'm sure that will help.

We visited Spencer's family for a little while while we had this two week break and it was so much fun. We went to the cabin, of course, Thanksgiving Point gardens, Yuba Lake, and various local pools with all the cousins. Ashley tried to keep up with her cousins all week long and in the end she was one tired girl! At one point her cousin Nathan asked me, "How come she can't move faster? When will she learn how to run?" I laughed my head off because they were just dying for her to move faster so that she could keep up with all of the things they wanted to do. :) They love her tons and she loves them. It was sad to watch her say goodbye to her cousins because none of them are really old enough to understand that they are saying goodbye for a few months, not just until tomorrow.

At another point, one of Ashley's other cousins, Teanna, told me (with a very concerned look on her face): "Why doesn't Ashley have a little brother? She NEEDS a little brother..." Spencer and I just looked at each other. How do you respond to a question like that to a 4-year-old? :)

Anyways, it was an amazing week and we wish we could be closer. We miss everyone like crazy but it was good to see them all again. Here's some pictures to show off what a fun time we had!

Ashley Update

2010-07-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

This picture is from a few weeks ago while we were in Cedar City. Ashley wanted to donate a dollar to get her picture with a search and rescue dog. It was cute. ;)

So, I feel I need to take the time while Ashley is sleeping to let you all know that she is now officially walking! Yes! Finally! After all this time she's finally learned to do it. She's always kind of acted like she didn't care whether she learned to do it or not because she can get anywhere she wants by crawling, so why walk? Well, desperate times call for desperate measures and I did the one thing I thought would work even if it meant giving her a lifelong addiction. Yes, I admit that I bribed her heavily with M&M's. She only got an M&M if she would walk to get it. Within a week she was walking! I must say, she is her mother's daughter! There's not much I wouldn't do for chocolate... ;)

Ashley has always been a jabber mouth. Anyone who has endured a long car ride with her knows how she can babble! I'd so much rather listen to her babble than screaming so I'm okay with this! Her list of words/phrases include: "hi" "hi dad" (never "hi mom") "doggie" "what's that?" "wall-e" "WOW!" "uh-oh" "daddy" "moma" (said only when upset and crying of course) and a number of other words she says on occasion but we can never get her to repeat again such as: "fish" "fireplace" and "bellybutton." She even said "o-hee-o" once which we think meant "obispo" since that's what Spencer is constantly calling my dad who was recently called as a bishop of a University ward in Cedar City.

So I'm going to make a quick update on myself as well since I'm pretty excited about this. I've never been able to lose the weight I gained with Ashley and have since gained even more weight, almost enough to equal what I weighed right before delivery. It's been really hard for me and I've worried that I would just get bigger and bigger with each kid and never lose the weight no matter how much I exercised and how careful I was with food. I finally saw and endocrinologist this last week who informed me that my thyroid is very swollen and unusual in its texture and all that. He seems to think I have thyroid issues (which I was suspecting as well) that can cause all of the problems I've been having, being tired all the time, no energy, headaches, generally feeling crappy and depressed sometimes, and unexplained weight gain. I know it's weird to be happy that something is wrong, but I'm really excited because I get to go back and do some blood work to find out what exactly is going on and what medications I need to feel better. I'm so excited to be taking care of this! I can't wait to feel good again and I can't wait to finally start losing the weight that I've been trying so hard to lose! I'm really happy about it!

4th of July, the Obispo, and the Elder!

2010-07-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

So I've been meaning to update for at least a week but haven't found time to do so because of all our adventures in the last week and because of Ashley's uncanny ability to ruin anything I'm trying to do on the computer. Her naps can be few and far between so it doesn't leave much blogging time. :)

Last minute we decided to spend the 4th of July weekend up in Boise where my Uncle John's family lives. From Vegas it's about a 12 hour drive I think (I'm not sure since we broke it up) and that's with traveling with Ashley. On Thursday the 1st we drove to my parents' house in Kanarraville, UT so we could be there early Friday morning when the were leaving. We didn't get out of the house until after 10 I think but hey, at least we got out of there. :) Anyway, we spent a really fun weekend with all of my mom's siblings and most of the cousins. It was really fun. On Saturday we had a pool party with my Aunt Michelle's side of the family followed by an awesome home firework show. On Sunday, the actual 4th of July, we of course went to church where my Uncle's ward sang a VERY rousing "The Star Spangled Banner" which made me think that all of our government leaders should listen more carefully to all of the verses.... and later that evening we played an impromptu baseball game (with a tennis ball for the safety of kids and windows...) and watched local illegal fireworks. The whole baseball/firework thing made me thing of the movie "The Sandlot" which I love and was pretty excited to reenact. We've got some pretty cute pictures to illustrate the weekend!

Spencer threw Ashley all around the pool and she loved it! He can throw her much higher than I can and though this shot doesn't shower her going as high as he was able to throw her, she was delighted all the same. :)

Ashley also learned so surf in my Uncle's pool that weekend. She had a blast, had a few spills, and is ever braver in her attempts to surf in swimming pools.

Dad, Mom and Ashley, Uncle Dave, Aunt Kristin, and Aunt Barbara. They were happier about sitting and watching the chaos in the pool rather than participating in it. ;)

And my favorite picture of Ashley this weekend! Ashley loves dogs and I'm pretty comfortable saying that "doggie" was Ashley's official first word. :) My Uncle's dog, Shadow, was very gentle and was so good at putting up with Ashley's poking and prodding all weekend. I'd venture to say he even liked it. At least enough to sniff her ear and send her into a hysterical fit of giggles.

Our little family.

My family, minus David who is on his mission, and Alan and Alexis who were not able to come that weekend.

And of course Ashley played a game of baseball with us! She took turns with each of us helping her to bat. She loved it! We're hoping she'll be a little athlete some day. ;)

Okay, that's all the pictures for this post. :) We drove home from Bosie all day on Monday for Spencer to be back into school on Tuesday. We left again on Friday night for another fun weekend at my parents' house. My dad was called to be the Bishop of a university ward and we wanted to be there for the occasion. The reason for the title of this post (the Obispo) is because "Obispo" is Spanish for "Bishop" and Spencer has been teasing my dad since before the call was even made by calling him Obispo whenever he got the chance. Now dad is lovingly known as the Obispo to us. Ashley cemented the name when she became bilingual and called dad "o-hee-o." We thought that was close enough. ;) We also were able to stay for Daniel that night when he was made an Elder. This was our last time seeing him until November and we wanted to spend time with him, especially to have Ashley see him. He's leaving today for basic training and we'll miss him lots but we'll sure be praying for him while he's there.

We're back home now fore a few weeks and Ashley is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Grandma Sorensen on Wednesday night. She'll be with us for almost a week and then next month we'll be spending our time up in South Jordan with them!

Ashley's Fat Lip

2010-06-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

So Ashley has this horrible habit of playing at the computer while one of us is using it (she's wreaking havoc as I speak) and we're always trying to drag her away from it. She can reach the keyboard while we're typing (if there's spelling/grammatical errors I don't catch it's because of her haha) and she loves to open the CD drive. Anyway, so she's playing around the computer on Thursday and I keep grabbing her and sitting her down, hoping she'll get tired of having to climb back up and about the fourth time, she climbs to her feet and then her hand slips and she hits her poor little face right on the leg of my folding chair. It was so sad! And of course she cried and she cried and it was so dramatic. :) I was a little upset and in an I-told-you-so mood until I saw the blood. :( Her little mouth was bleeding all over the place! She'd bit her bottom lip wide open with her brand new top teeth. So I ran to the bathroom and got a cold washcloth to hold to her face and we sat on the couch to watch cartoons while she calmed down. Thankfully I didn't have to take her to the doctor (let's face it, I have no idea where to take her anyways, it got me thinking I should work on that...) but the poor little thing has got a HUGE lip! By today the swelling had gone down quite a bit and now you can't even tell she did anything. As you can see she resumed her happy face when the trauma was over. :)
We had to change clothes because of the blood but then we headed to the park to play on the swings and to blow some bubbles! Unfortunately it's so stinking hot in the afternoon that our park adventure lasted all of about 15 minutes before red-faced and sweaty we had to head back inside. I got some cute pictures out of it though!

The other day I walked into Ashley's room and she was trying to cut her toenails haha. Good thing they were safety clippers and she couldn't have cut herself. :)

And did I mention that she likes to play inside her toy boxes???

At the pool with mom and dad, I figured I'd put a picture of dad in since he's not in here much. ;)

Ashley does this funny monkey walk on Sundays when she's wearing a dress. It's absolutely hilarious and thought you would all enjoy it! ;) I'll try to get better pictures of it next week. :)

Our new place!

2010-06-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

So I didn't realize while I was adding these images that they were all in the opposite order that I wanted them to be and I'm too tired and too lazy to change it haha. I finally got our house clean enough throughout the whole thing to take pictures of it and feel comfortable with everyone looking at them. :) I'm a little self conscious about things like that but here they are! The pictures I've promised!

Like I said, the order of the pictures is super awkward but whatever! This is our bathroom and I know most of you are thinking, "Seriously? They posted a picture of their bathroom?" But if you have ever stayed the night at my house, or even if you have ever visited and had to use my bathroom, you know how excited I am to have a real bathroom! With a counter and linen closet and everything! And guess what? Shley has her own bathroom of the same size! *gasp!* I know, I'm so happy for me too.

The following are pictures of my lovely bedroom, complete with two walk-in closets! Fortunately for us, it's pretty popular in Nevada to build homes/apartments/condos with large walk-in closets. Our bigger closet is full of our clothes (yes, Spencer can fit all his in with mine) and our smaller closet is used for storage which is also something that our other places or residence were lacking. Storage space. We love it!

This is Ashley's bathroom! It's so stinking cute and I have to thank my mother for the adorable wall stickers that make her bathroom so cute. You can't see them well here, but there's a bunch of stickers on the wall of sea animals and stuff. Awesome!

Here's Ashley's room. It's pretty dang cute if I do say so myself. You can even see Shley's cute little bald head in a lot of these shots. :) Ashley also has a large walk-in closet and a door to the bathroom which we've blocked with a twin bed for whichever grandma happens to be visiting at the time. It's a big room for Ashley and I'm so happy she can finally play in her room without me worrying she'll hurt herself. (Ashley's last room was small and was filled with storage bins. The poor thing could hardly go in there.)

Here's our kitchen and office space. In the kitchen is another door to a laundry room! This is another thing I've been dying to have again, especially since having a baby. We were without a washer and dryer for the last year and a half and it has really irritated me. Hooray for laundry rooms!

The dining room and the door to our bedroom...

My super sweet living room complete with super sweet baby...

And yes that is a new couch and a bean bag! This is also the first place we've lived where we weren't in constant fear of putting nail-holes in the wall. We were threatened with our safety deposit in our previous apartments so it's so nice to have lots of pictures up everywhere!

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. We love our new place and couldn't be happier! Now that you've seen it and seen that it's much easier to spend the night at our house than the last few places we've lived you should come visit us! Right now!

We Moved!

2010-06-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well we finally did it! Spencer and I both graduated from BYU in April and since then we've been very busy. On May 1st I ran a half marathon, moved out of our Wymount apartment, and we went to a Real Salt Lake soccer game which was a blast! And the month did not slow down after that. We then moved in with my parents down in Kannarraville, UT and left Ashley there while we took several day trips down to Las Vegas to look for housing. After two weeks with my parents and frantic apartment searching we settled into a place in Henderson. We love it here and it's almost twice as big as our last apartment! Best of all, no more laundromat!!!! :D (I promise to post pictures of our cute little condo soon!). After settling in we took a quick trip back up to Kannarraville where my little brother Daniel graduated from high school, got sworn into the National Guard, and had his 18th birthday. It was a fun trip even though it was fast.

We're finally back home and Spencer has started into his first semester and the University Nevada Las Vegas! On the first day of class he began the dissection of a 90-year-old female cadaver. Having worked with cadavers before this wasn't a huge deal however cadavers smell much worse while dissecting them than they do when you're studying an already dissected cadaver. Perhaps this is why all of the students get together at the end of the semester and burn their scrubs... the smell never comes out! He's enjoying being in class and getting to know the other kids in his program. Interesting side note on his class: there are 15 boys and 15 girls. All but about 3 of the boys are LDS and married. We don't think any of the girls are LDS and only 1 or 2 are married. Interesting numbers, yeah?

Ashley has finally adapted to the change and recognizes this as home. She didn't sleep well for a while but now she's sleeping through the night again, a huge relief for mom and dad. :) She misses her cousins and can't wait to play with them again. In our last post we mentioned that Ashley never showed signs of wanting to crawl... boy did she change that! She's now everywhere and into everything! She's pulling herself up on just about anything and getting ready to walk. The other day we stood her at the edge of the pool so she could jump to us. Spencer let go of her hands and she stood for a good 10 seconds! She had a look on her face like, "holy cow I'm standing!" and then she promptly fell in and has not attempted to stand that long on her own since. :) She's got a ton of energy and keeps herself very busy.

As for me, I'm getting use to being a stay-at-home mom. Ever since Ashley was born I've had class, homework, and coaching but now that I've graduated and Spencer is in school full time I don't have any of that anymore. It's super weird and sometimes a little depressing but I'm adjusting to the schedule and as weird as this sounds, I'm adjusting to having free time during Ashley's naps. I've taking advantage of them by keeping up my workout routines at home and reading every book in the house. :) I tease Spencer that I need another kid to keep me busier. I'm sure once that really happens I'll wish I had only one again haha.

We're loving our new place and hope that anyone and everyone stops by on their way through!

2009-12-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while and a lot has happened in the last few months. I knew I would never be this diligent in keeping up with a blog so I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed. :) Ashley has started sitting up on her own, eating everything in sight, clicking her tongue, and standing at the coffee table without any help. She can't pull herself up, we have to put her there, but she'll stand there unsupported. She hasn't made any effort to crawl so we're thinking she may be one of those kids who walks before they crawl?

We never posted any pictures from Halloween so we'll stick one on here but Spencer and I went as characters from Monsters Vs. Aliens (Spencer was Bob and I was Ginormica minus the white hair since I couldn't find a white wig under $20... so sad) and then little Ashley was the cutest lobster I've ever seen!

We had a great time going around grandma and grandpa Sorensen's neighborhood with some cousins trick-or-treating. Spencer and I decided not to collect candy for her this year since she doesn't care and Spencer and I don't need the calories... :)

We missed getting pictures during Thanksgiving but it was a wonderful day to spend with the family. We had a lot of fun and stuffed ourselves silly. We even had Ashley at the table with us eating a jar of sweet potatoes so she could feel like she was feasting on Thanksgiving dinner too. :)

Not too long after Thanksgiving we took Ashley to buy her first Christmas tree. It was so fun!

Feeling the tree and all its pokyness... :)

My brother got married Dec. 12th down in the Las Vegas Temple so we did the six hour road trip down for the occasion. Ashley was such a good baby and I'm not sure I'll ever get this lucky again with a baby! We had a great time with some family we rarely see and got some great pictures out of it too. :)

While on this trip Grandpa Grimm gave Ashley her first taste of Diet Coke. As you can see her mouth is wide open and ready for it! Shortly after this pictures she stuck her tongue farther into the cup haha.
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Here's the whole dang family (except David who's on a mission)! It was a fun day and we were all so excited for Alan and Alexis!

Dangerous Date!

2009-10-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Spencer and I were finally able to go on a date for the first time since our anniversary in August. Marjean came down and watched Ashley for us on Monday night while we went out to dinner and to the corn maze. It was a lot of fun. Thanksgiving Point had a lot more than just the corn maze there and so Spencer and I were running around like little kids looking at all the fun stuff that was there before we got lost in the maze. We found some tether-ball poles and decided to play a few rounds. Big mistake! :) Once we were finished playing I decided to get the ball unstuck from the metal hook at the top. I jumped up to hit the ball down and instead I clocked poor Spencer right in the face! We're pretty sure he may have been knocked out for half a second haha. I was worried that I might have cut him open with my nails but there was no blood and now three days later still no bruise. About an inch lower and I would have taken out his eye! It was crazy. His face is okay but I am sad to report that I have either seriously sprained or broken my middle finger. That's what I get for punching out my husband. :) We will be much more careful on our next date. ;)

On a happier note, we had Ashley's first baby pictures taken in September and I decided to post a few on here for everyone's enjoyment. She's a cutie!

There's a ton more but I didn't want to post them all otherwise it would take forever!

2009-10-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

So I realized that I haven't updated in about three weeks but in my defense it's been a loaded three weeks! Spencer and I are always flying by the seat of our pants which sounds kind of exciting but really, it's stressful. :) I'm always off at school, or teaching, or coaching, or going to swim meets and Spencer is really busy working, going to school, and applying for PT school. Some of those applications are pretty nasty. I do not envy him.

So, onto the Ashley update. She's as cute as ever and has been rolling over for about three weeks now. The only problem is she can only roll from her back to her stomach and not from her stomach to her back. This is a constant issue since she doesn't like spending too much time on her stomach and then cries and cries until we flip her back over. We try to help her do it herself but she's so distraught that things haven't sunk in yet. On a lighter note, she's started eating cereal a couple of times a day after her bottle and she thinks it's great fun. I open my mouth real big and make chewing noises and she thinks it's hilarious and will mimic me when I stick the spoon in her mouth. I'm so happy she loves to eat like a big girl and it's not a fight... yet. ;)

We've also had some crazy stomach bug flying around our house that Ashley and I have been passing back and forth. It has NOT been fun. I've always hated barf and was worried how I would take care of sick kids and let me tell you, I hate it! It's so gross and I almost always feel sick too. I guess that's something I'll just have to get used to. After I was infected, then Ashley, then me again, then Ashley again, I think we're finally in the clear! Spencer lucked out on this round. :)

We're all excited because Crowsh is finally getting married tomorrow and we're exited for her and for spending time with all the family that's coming into town. We'll be sure to take lots of pictures of the little monster while there so everyone can see her cute side. ;)

2009-09-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

Normally I have a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays that I can't have Ashley in and so she goes to Laura's house for the morning while Spencer and I were in class. Last Thursday, however, I did not have my cycling class and so I decided to not take her to Laura's house and just bring her to class with me instead. I am so glad I did!

I have this old professor that is a great teacher and just loves his students. I had him for a weight training techniques class last semester while I was pregnant with Ashley and he was very impressed that I was still lifting weights and doing power cleans at almost 8 months pregnant. :) Anyways, in the middle of class he starts asking me about Ashley. He asked if I wanted her to go to college and I said yes. He then walks to the back of the class where I'm standing with Ashley, pulls out a $100 bill and says "Put that in her college fund and when she's older tell her it's from me." I couldn't believe it! It was amazing! Turns out he's a multimillionaire and can afford to do stuff like that haha.

This last weekend we also went up to Park City. I had to go on a trip with the high school swim team where I'm the assistant coach. I'm so proud of myself for driving through the canyon by myself! The canyon is beautiful right now and I'm hoping to go through it again before the weather gets bad and take some pictures. Spencer came up Friday night to stay with Ashley and I because as of yet we have never spent a night apart from each other. I was happy he decided to come up even though he had to leave early the next morning to be to work Saturday morning.

Life is crazy but somehow we're surviving and even though some days I'm so busy I can't even make it to the shower, it's mostly good stuff so I shouldn't complain too much right? :)

2009-09-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

So I decided that we are ridiculously bad at updating our blog and since I found out that TJ and Tara actually look at our blog I felt that I had some sort of responsibility to actually update. :) I talked to Spencer and I figured that we should try and update once a week or so, so that we have a sort of family journal to look back on and so that we don't bore the people who actually look to see what's new. So, here it goes!

Since our last post Spencer and I were blessed to bring a baby girl into the world on May 11 at 2:48pm. She weighed in at 7lbs. 4oz. and was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen. The due date was May 17th and I was praying my heart out that I would make it to the end because my mom wasn't going to be able to be here for the birth if she came too much earlier than that. The baby's prayers were much more effective than mine and so she came the day after Mother's Day instead. Even though I was not able to have my own mom there, my wonderful mother-in-law was there helping and she was a life-saver! We named the baby Ashley Beth Sorensen (Beth is my middle name and my mom's as well). I'll spare the grosser details but I'll note that I felt like a super hero because I was able to do a natural birth like I wanted and Spencer was a great companion during labor and good comic relief during the delivery.
We've been getting used to having a baby around and it is so much fun! She is four months old now and weighs 15lbs. Ashley is a great baby, she started sleeping through the night at two months old, and hardly ever cries aside from letting us know when she's hungry, sleepy, or needs a new diaper. She's recently started laughing and she loves it when Spencer plays with her. She laughs more at him than she does at me. :)
Spencer and I went back to school on August 31st and we tried taking Ashley to class but it just wasn't working out. I was okay taking her to my classes because I'm in a cohort where I've known my classmates and professors for a year and we're all together again this year but Spencer felt bad taking Ashley to class where he didn't know anyone. We got babysitters for the few hours in the morning while we're at school and she does just fine. I, on the other hand, am not just fine about it. I miss my baby! :) I had to drive out to my sister-in-law's house to drop her off last Tuesday and I cried. It was just so sad! Ashley had fallen asleep in her car seat on the way and had no idea I was leaving her. I'm so thankful that we have family watching her and that it's only until December!

2009-01-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

So it's obviously been a while since either Spencer or myself have been on here but hey, we warned people that we weren't good at this sort of thing! :) Since finding out that we're having a baby we've gone in for another ultrasound and discovered that we're having a baby girl! We have to go back in for another ultrasound soon because she wouldn't get her hands out of her face and they needed to check for any deformities and what not so Spencer is going to ask to make sure it's really a girl. ;) She's due May 17th and with half of my family having birthdays in May and some May birthdays in Spencer's family, she's got a good shot of hitting one of them! We're very excited and truly blessed to be having a child at this time and we're interested to see how our baby girl does going to and from school with us for a few months! :)

The first post ever!

2008-11-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

When we found out that Sara is pregnant, Jen suggested that we start a blog. There really is nothing too exciting to blog about, except for Sara's constant sickness, constipation, and strange emotions. But at least we have a picture of the baby!!! He or she is 3 months old (in the womb). Sorry the picture is so small. Apparently everthing is going well so far. Spencer had a mental breakdown shortly after seeing that he really was going to be a father.